


Happy Campers

by Freshnonsense42



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Camping, Competition, Established Relationship, M/M, Pack Bonding, Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, Sterek Week 2019, sterekoutdoors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 16:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21200663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freshnonsense42/pseuds/Freshnonsense42
Summary: The pack goes camping as a bonding exercise. It goes about as well as you would expect.While on the trip, Derek has a surprise for Stiles.





	Happy Campers

Derek had been acting weird for weeks, but Stiles wasn’t worried. Sometimes they did that. They both had a lot of baggage, and sometimes they just needed a little time to act suspiciously. It never bothered either of them.

Then Scott announced the pack would go for a camping trip as a bonding exercise and Derek _agreed_. As though putting a group of nearly thirty years old supernatural creatures in the woods was a good idea. And Stiles was saying that as someone who loved and supported said group of people.

When Derek agreed with Scott’s idea, Stiles had taken him aside and said he wanted a check-in. It was something they had started after a year of dating, when things were difficult and their baggage sometimes got in the way of what they really wanted. They had a list of ten questions they asked each other, all of them yes or no, just to make sure it was a normal weirdness and not a spiraling weirdness.

The check-in went well. Apparently, Derek and Scott getting along was _normal_ weirdness. Every fiber in Stiles’ body wanted him to investigate and push until he learned the whole truth, but he refrained.

That’s right, Stiles Stilinski let Derek have a mystery and didn’t pick at it until it unravelled and ruined Derek’s trust in him. What was that? Freaking character growth! Because Derek would tell Stiles when he was ready, and Stiles was willing to wait.

The purpose of their check-ins was to prevent invasions of privacy or bouts of paranoia from happening. It had taken Stiles awhile to learn self-control, but it had been necessary for the survival of their relationship.

Then Derek had suggested he and Stiles split up for the ride to the camping site. Stiles had immediately asked for another check-in. It went well. Again. But Stiles still ended up in Roscoe with Erica, Boyd, Isaac, and Scott. Derek took the SUV rental with Lydia, Allison, Cora, and Kira. Jackson had refused to ride with anyone else and rented an unnecessary truck for him and Danny.

So far, nothing horrifyingly supernatural had happened. Stiles thought it was only a matter of time.

“This,” announced Erica on the drive, “is a dumb idea.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, hoping for strength to deal with the meltdown of four grown werewolves. Scott twisted in the passenger seat to glare at her. “Nuh-uh.”

“Our fearless alpha, everyone,” snarked Erica. Stiles had to admit, Scott's response wasn’t the most mature, but Erica wasn’t exactly winning maturity awards in this situation either.

“Shut-up,” said Isaac as he reached over Boyd to shove at Erica. “Scott’s a way better alpha now than he used to be.”

Stiles bit down on a grin, because he knew what was coming next. Scot twisted so that he was sitting on his knees, the seatbelt tangled around him, and beamed at Isaac. “Thanks, babe,” he said, unaware of the backhanded compliment. Stiles was only about 60% sure Isaac was unaware of the backhanded nature of it. “Anyway, this is a good idea, guys. We always need more bonding. There’s nothing wrong with a stronger pack.” He said the last part primly, like he was reciting it from a book he’d read.

“Half the pack are dating each other,” Stiles couldn’t resist pointing out. “We’ve got a weird incestuous vibe going on in our pack already, dude. The Malone Pack were side eyeing us pretty hard when they visited last month.”

Scott plopped back onto his butt and frowned. “What’re you talking about? I thought they liked us.”

“They did, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think we’re the cliché backwoods hillbilly pack. Like Canadians are so modern.” Stiles scoffed at the very idea. Beacon Hills wasn’t a mega city hub, but they did all right. There was a _Starbucks,_ thanks.“I’m just saying, maybe stop trying to explain all our relationships to strangers. Particularly past relationships. Not everyone needs to know that you dated Allison, Allison dated Isaac, and Isaac’s dating you now. Just… tell ‘em who you’re dating _now_.”

“I only told Angie that because she said she had dated Rob and was dating Carter now.”

Erica leaned forward and said, “Scott. You told her that you and Stiles were brothers, Stiles was dating Derek, and he was Isaac’s guardian in high school. Do hear how that sounds? Do you get why the Malone Pack thought we were all a little _too_ close?”

Scott shrugged and said, mulishly, “No. I don’t think a pack can be too close.” Erica rolled here eyes and sat back with a huff. In the rearview mirror, Stiles saw Boyd pat Erica’s knee.

“If we’re already so close,” said Boyd, “why do we need a pack bonding camping trip?”

“We can’t be too close!” Even Isaac looked a little uncertain at that, but he nodded supportively. “Besides, who doesn’t love camping.”

“Stiles, if you don’t get control of your alpha, I’m gonna wolf-out.” Erica warned around her fangs.

Stiles sighed. “Let’s play the quiet game.”

“You always lose the quiet game.”

“Hey, Isaac? Fuck you.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Scott turned his puppy eyes on Stiles, who resolutely refused to look away from the road. “We need to be a supportive pack.”

This was important to Scott. He had spent weeks planning it and talking everyone into showing up. That amount of effort meant that Scott really did think this would lead to them all being a better pack. Stiles had honestly expected the day of the trip to roll around and Scott to have forgotten about it.

Stiles had been fully prepared to let the pack hang out at Derek and Stiles’ place for the day. What could a camping trip do that a cook-out couldn’t? At least with a cook-out there would be actual bathrooms and wifi and no insects.

But Derek had _helped_ Scott plan the trip.There was no way for Scott to forget about it. Which also meant that this camping trip, for whatever reason, was important to Derek too. If two of Stiles’ favorite people were determined to do the whole group camping trip, then he would deal with it with a minimum of whining.

In a show of support for his best friend, Stiles said, “Fine. We’ll behave.” Erica scoffed and even Boyd hummed skeptically. “We get it, guys. You think this is dumb, but we’re doing it. Can’t you just… find something good about it?”

“What fun thing did you find about this stupid trip?”

“Um, hello? Lumberjack Derek? I brought him a red flannel shirt and I will force him into it.”

“No one wants to hear about your sexual fantasies, Stilinski,” said Boyd.

Stiles snorted. “False. You’re all a bunch of pervert-wolves.”

Erica jerked upright with a gasp. “I know! I can totally put up a tent faster than Isaac.”

“Why me?”

“I’m not gonna fight Boyd, we’re sharing a tent. And I don’t care about beating Scott.” Stiles shot her a warning glare in the rearview mirror. Out of everyone, Erica had adjusted to Scott being her alpha the poorest. She’d had issues with Derek as her alpha, but had been alarmingly loyal to him. “We’ll have Stiles time us to figure out who can set things up fastest. Out of everyone!”

Stiles clutched his steering wheel with a deep sense of foreboding. The only thing worse than a group of nearly thirty years old werewolves in the woods, was a group of overly competitive near thirty years old werewolves in the woods.

“Uh, I’m not sure”-

“If I win,” said Isaac over Stiles, “I get half of your s’mores.”

“Yeah, well, _when_ I win I get half of _your_ s’mores.” Erica settled back into her seat, apparently satisfied now that she had a goal in mind. 

* * *

Erica had no difficulty convincing everyone to join her competition. They were all assholes who loved proving they were the best. Stiles sat in a camping chair while they worked and Derek calmly set-up their tent.

Stiles insisted that they had to set-up the tents _right_. Because he was not helping anyone whose tent collapsed in the middle of the night. There would be no tent sharing! He also was not helping anyone, not even to hold a flashlight, re-pitch their tent at midnight before everyone went to bed.

Everyone ignored him.

Lydia and Allison won the competition, mostly because Allison had basically grown up preparing to be a survivalist. There was a brief argument over whether the win should qualify, both because Allison had experience and neither of them were werewolves. Ultimately, Lydia bullied them into honoring the contest and giving them half of everyone’s s’mores later that night.

Then Jackson, the douche, suggested a hunt. Which was _ridiculous_. What did they need a hunt for? They had brought plenty of food. There was meat in coolers! There was chips! And trail mix! He’d made it specifically for the trip! Stop bringing dead rabbits to the camp site, you heathens!

Derek eventually wrapped an arm around Stiles’ waist and nuzzled his neck. Lowly, he said, “If they’re busy competing, we can have some alone time. I pitched our tent properly.”

Stiles wriggled his ass against Derek’s crotch and said, “I bet you did.”

Derek huffed against his neck. “You’re so bad at dirty talk.”

“Shut-up. I’m awesome.” Then he twisted around so he could kiss that smirk right off Derek’s face.

The rest of the pack were busy for several hours. Possibly with their competition, possibly with doing dirty things in the woods. Stiles no longer questioned their obsession with semi-public sexy times. Supernatural hotties just had no sense of privacy.

Stiles and Derek were cuddling and dozing in their boxers, when Derek jackknifed up, pupils blown wide and breathing shallow. It only took a moment for Stile’s sleepy brain to catch up with what was wrong. Unexpected smoke.

Half to reassure Derek, and half to ensure no one was doing anything stupid, Stiles scrambled out of the tent. “What are you doing?” His foot got caught on the edge of the tent and he fell flat on his face outside. Which, whatever. Not like he wasn’t used to that.

The pack had created three separate areas for fire pits and had apparently split into teams for a fire building competition. None of them had managed to do more than cause excessive amounts of smoke. Both Erica _and_ Kira held lighter fluid in their hands. Why had two bottles been brought on the trip? Kira had literal fire powers!

“Freeze!” Stiles shrieked. “Stop what you’re doing! Smokey the Bear would not approve! Only _you_ can prevent forest fires!”

“Relax, Stilinski,” said Jackson. “We know what we’re doing.”

“You know- what the fuck?” He stumbled out of the way of a pile of dead animals, which had been stacked near the various fire pits. “No more dead animals! Stop that!”

“You brought dead cow.”

“Yeah, but it looks like food now. This looks like we’re a bunch of psychotic animal killers. No dead animals and no fire competitions.” He glanced at Cora, who was seated on a fallen log off to one side. Her jaw was tight and her gaze intense on Lydia, Allison, and Kira’s fire pit. “Everyone step away from the fire pits.”

For a moment they all hesitated, like they might ignore him and carry on with their competition anyway. Unfortunately for them, Stiles was the cook of the group. If they pissed him off then he would simply refuse to make any of them supper and probably hoard the chips.

They dropped their various sticks and kindling, and set down the boxes of matches and the lighter fluid. Stiles collected the last two things with narrowed eyes. “After I get dressed, Derek will do his little magic whatever to the sticks, then Kira will set them on fire _with supervision_. No fire competitions.”

“Killjoy.”

“Oh boohoo, I want everyone to live.” It didn’t escape Stiles’ notice that Cora had noticeably relaxed. Was everyone genuinely too traumatized to realize what playing with fire in front of two of the only surviving Hales would do to them? “Why can’t you just do normal camping stuff and go for a hike?”

When he turned to storm back into his tent, Derek exited wearing the red flannel shirt Stiles had brought. It was at least part thank you for stopping the fire competition. Stiles beamed at him, but Erica said, “Bow chicka wow wow,” which caused Derek to blush furiously.

Stiles shot her a glare, but she shrugged unapologetically. When he walked past Derek he said, “We should just abandon them here. I’ve had enough pack bonding.”

“Dude,” said Scott from behind him.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “As if I’d ever leave you, buddy.” He hurried back into the tent before Scott could comment on things like ‘heartbeats’.

* * *

After a long hike, the group settled down some. Stiles watched them all suspiciously. There was calming down and there was lulling someone into a false sense of security. But the fire was lit, and he started cooking dinner, and there was no more talk of competitions.

It turned out Scott was the one lulling them into a false sense of security. While they were eating the burgers Stiles had cooked on a shitty portable grill, Scott cleared his throat importantly. An obvious sign that he was about to do something Alpha related.

“Now we can start the bonding exercise.”

Everyone gaped at him. Stiles could think of nothing he wanted less than to do more bonding with his pack, who he loved very much. _Away_ from the freaking woods. “Uh, Scotty, I thought the camping trip was the bonding exercise.”

“Nah, it’s just a nice location for the bonding exercise.”

Stiles’ brows shot up. “So’s the beach, man. You seriously brought us out here for some _other_ weird bonding exercise? Did you google corporate bonding tips or something?”

Scott turned slightly pink, but ignored Stiles. “We’re all gonna go around the campfire and reveal a secret that nobody else here knows.” Everyone responded with a firm ‘no’ with a few ‘fuck, no’s thrown in. “It’ll be fun. Anyway, you have to since I’m the alpha.” Erica threw her water bottle at his head.

“I’ll start,” he announced, ignoring the water bottle. “Um, in the fourth grade I… ok, I cheated on all my spelling tests. All year.”

A beat of silence.

“That’s not a secret,” shouted Erica.

“Yes it is! Nobody knew.”

“I totally knew.”

“No you didn’t, Stiles!”

“It’s a shitty secret,” insisted Jackson. “It’s not even interesting.”

“Well, it’s _my_ secret.” Stiles patted him on the back as supportively as he could. Although, honestly? Scott couldn’t come up with a single better secret than _that_? The guy hadn’t even been subtle about his cheating. Ms. Grissom had probably known about it and ignored it because Scott was such a sweet kid. “Stiles, you’re next. We’ll just go around like that.”

Stiles considered his secrets for a few moments. He didn’t want to drop anything too intense, because this was ostentatiously supposed to be a fun outing. Also, it would take so much energy to deal with the fall out from an actual secret.

So he said, “I let the girls from _Jungle_ give me a drag queen makeover.” Because that wasn’t actually a secret so much as something that had never come up. “Not really my thing, but it was fun.”

Jackson sat up straight in his camping chair and demanded, “Are there pictures?”

“Nah.”

Scott leaned around Stiles and demanded, “Derek?”

“Dude! Did you hear me lie? There aren’t any pictures.” He shrugged. “I’m not even embarrassed about it. I’ll let them give me another makeover and do drag karaoke next time it’s on. You guys can all come. I only did it because I was bored. You guys were out of town on some supernatural bullshit, which you said us mere humans couldn’t help with. Lydia and Allison were on their getaway weekend to San Fransisco.”

“I’d do a drag queen makeover.”

“It’s not your turn to reveal a secret, Isaac,” scolded Scott.

“It’s not a secret. It’s something I just realized.”

“Hell yeah,” said Stiles. “We’ll get our makeovers together. Do a sing-off.” He and Isaac high-fived to seal the deal.

Scott flapped a hand at them so they’d sit back down. Because Scott always wanted Isaac and Stiles to get along better, except when Isaac and Stiles were actually getting along. Honestly, that realization had made liking Isaac way easier. Not because he wanted to annoy Scott, exactly, but because Stiles _got_ it.

He wanted Derek and Scott to get along. He also wanted Derek and Scott all to himself. He wanted Scott to be happy and Isaac made him happy, so he wanted Scott and Isaac to be happy. He also wanted Isaac to take a long walk off a short pier. Complexity was a son of a bitch. 

That didn’t stop Stiles from smirking at Scott knowingly. Scott, because he had known Stiles for way too long to be bothered by his smirks, said, “Derek, it’s your turn.”

Derek cleared his throat, but Stiles kept his attention on Scott. If he stared at him for long enough then Scott would get uncomfortable. Maybe he’d annoy him into a wrestling match. Stiles always lost those anymore, but they were still fun.

Then Derek said, softly, “I bought an engagement ring last month.”

Stiles’ head whipped around to find Derek on one knee with a ring box in one hand. “Holy shit.”

“Stiles Stilinski”-

“Holy shit.”

“Will you marry me?” He offered the simple silver band out to Stiles with a small smile.

“Holy shit,” repeated Stiles without offering anything else.

Dead silence filled the camp site for an agonizingly long moment. When panic crept onto Derek’s face, Scott shoved Stiles’ shoulder and said, “_Dude_.”

Stiles jolted out of his shock to shout, “Yes! Fuck!”

He ignored the ring in favor of flinging himself into Derek’s arms. Derek chuckled, and part of Stiles knew his friends were taking pictures. That this whole goddamn trip had been a set-up for this moment. Even the fact that Derek was dressed up like a freaking lumberjack had been a ploy.

It didn’t matter. Because Stiles was gonna be Derek Hale’s _husband_. It was the best day of his life.


End file.
